What Prompted You To Buy A Fractal?

  1. Finally got my gear out of storage when we moved into our new house and had a dedicated play space for the first time in 6 years. Before we had 2 kids and us stuffed into a 980 square foot house with no basement, everything was in storage and guitars were stuffed under beds and in closets. Yeah I didn't really play at this point.
  2. Wanted a headphone interface to play when kids went to bed, but wanted to be able to play out with people some day again
  3. Decided to sell all my old gear and get best in class. This was the one time I had to get new gear and it be family-acceptable
  4. Did I mention I wanted best in class? What sold me was the tweakability and the modeling methodology (actually modeling components) such that I could create a rig like in the real world and tweak it like what I was used to.
  5. And @2112 videos.
 
I have been chasing an "amp-less" solution since 1984 when I was forced to use a Rockman to finish a night because my Fender Super Reverb decided to melt. It was a lightbulb moment for me and, while I still woke up early the next day, swapped some tubes and re-soldered some resistors so I would not have to do it again that night, the Rockman worked just enough that I figured a workable replacement for expensive, finicky tube amps would be "just around the corner". Ha ha ha ha. Needless to say, nearly forty years and dozens of boxes later, I still have a room full of expensive, finicky tube amps.

With Fractal, I was, honestly, rolling the dice one more time. I saw the same videos everyone else is mentioning but, let's be honest, any good player can make just about any piece of gear sound good for a couple of minutes. I have gotten decent results with a lot of inferior gear going all the way back to that Rockman. That doesn't mean I would ever choose to play through one over a good amp.

Even as a Fractal convert, IMO, it was really Cygnus that finally raised the bar and set the benchmark so high that I now think we have rounded that corner.
 
My path to getting an AxeFX was really kind of bizarre. 7-8 years ago, I often shopped used music gear to try out various things. If you are careful, it is "free", because you can sell the gear again for a similar price. Some guy had an AxeFX something for sale at a price that was tempting. He turned out to be a scammer, but his posting made me look into the unit, which I didn't knew about before.

Then during covid, GAS came back to me, and I started to look at Fractal stuff again. Watching Leon's videos was a nice way to spend time alone. So I watched a lot them, and in the end I had to try an AxeFX 3 mk2.

What an incredible unit. So in the end, I was lucky to cross paths with that scammer, and I didn't lose my money anyway.
 
I wasn’t the first, or second, or even likely the 1000th customer … But I got here as quick as I could. The continuous improvement from FAS has earned a deep, lasting loyalty.

Early demos were from Mark Day, Pete Thorn, Cooper Carter. I had put music down for some years, and this was my reentry into guitar after that hiatus. I had a long love affair with rack equipment, but this time wanted it all in one box. It became more than I ever thought it could be. 👍❤️🙏

Fractal has provided thousands of hours of enjoyment for me.

Despicable Me Guitar GIF
 
I’m ‘just’ a home guitarist playing for fun & relaxation.
I wanted something that sounded great and at low volumes - partly due to disturbing the rest of the family & partly to hide my inadequacies on the instrument.
I wanted authentic sounds and had great features.
I tried Line 6 Helix as well as the Headrush and just wasn’t happy with these.

Love the Axe Fx III Turbo - great kit & has made playing guitar much more fun, I try new things more & am no longer looking for a good solution!!
 
In the early 2000s I was playing through a 2x12 valve combo, using a GT-8 for FX. The GT-8 membrane switches became unreliable. Whilst I was researching a decent replacement multiFX I was offered a second hand Ultra and FCB1010. The 2x12 didn’t get replaced until I’d upgraded to an AxeFX II, and amp modelling got to about v8.

The AxeFX III and FC-12 is a different story. Age and arthritis mean that my gigging days are limited. It was a case of now or never, and for the first time I bought new.
 
Would be neat to have my old rig just to play once gain to appreciate the massive improvement gained. To hear them side by side. My old Digitech GSP 1101/PA/cab setup in particular
 
I have a bunch of tracks and board tapes representing various rigs from the last thirty-odd years, including POD, Rockman, RedBox cabinet-simulators, etc. as well as lots of live amps. Most of these still hold up and some sound good enough to make me want to pull a particular piece of gear out of storage. After a little time though I always remember why they were retired.
 
In the early ‘90’s after playing in hard rock and metal bands for years, I got involved to ‘sell myself out’ to join top 40 and wedding bands (hey, it was better money.. lol)
Knowing what I was getting into, I regrettably sold my beloved ‘69 Marshall 50w half stack, as it wasn’t the amp for those types of gigs. Damn .. I wish I had it back.
Anyway, I bought some rack gear, a solid state power amp, and 1/12 cabinets. Through the years I went through plenty of gear... Digitech, Rocktron, Roland, even the JMP-1.
Personally, I was never really satisfied... especially in the beginning, but I used what I had at the time, and made it work for what I needed.
Around 2006 I saw these adds in Guitar Player magazine of the Fractal. The reviews were very good, 5 star stuff, and artists were starting to use them. So I decided to take the plunge and get the Ultra.
It was better, more realistic than the rest, and I made it work for me (like everything else I’ve had) and I was pretty satisfied... more so than whatever I owned since I sold that Marshall.
Since then I bought the IIXL+, and now the IIIMK-II. I still have the other two generations, and I’m still amazed at how many improvements have been done thru the years.
So tone, options, and feel wise, I’m totally happy and there’s nothing else I need.. plus I know this is the best company in the market of pro Audio gear.
 
One of my first artist tours. By request of the musical director, I was to switch from an analog tube amp + pedals rig to running direct with IEM. This was probably around 2010? 2011 (my memory escapes me).

At the time, everyone was transitioning to silent stages, backing tracks, direct rigs etc. The offerings at the time were terrible and I was looking into solutions that would sound great. A friend from the band Saosin and now working at Suhr Guitars let me borrow (and later sold) me a spare Axefx Ultra.

I was immediately hooked and one of the first guys in town to start really putting it through what it was capable of at the time. Spent many years touring that rig, playing local shows etc and have been a Fractal devotee ever since.
 
It was 100% Mark Day for me.

His preset had too much gain (haha) but helped me solve the problems of getting the thing to sound like a real amp. I think he had a graphic EQ after the amp block which compensated for a missing or less sophisticated simulation of speaker impedance curve effects. These effects are a big factor in why solid state amps sound dead and lifeless compared to tube amps. I had no idea there was such a thing at the time. Later on, these kinds of bandaids weren't needed but I would have never gotten over that hump without Mark's presets.

And then my love of building and tweaking tube amps died for a number of years because my tone quest was over. My rig was head-exploding awesome- even better than my tube amps because of the ease of fixing real-world problems in the simulated amp.

I've only recently gotten back into building and using tube amps again- mostly because of the experience of a tube amp rather than the sound. The sound is nailed but the experience is different.

Now I enjoy both tube amps and the fractal. Sometimes separate, sometimes together. Thankfully we can have it all.
 
Someone who came to my shop telling me he has one he wanted to sell (the 2) . The unit was pretty rare here, so I jumped on it as I already own/owned all the others modelers and are always curious about modern things even if I’m a tube amp lover first .

To me that’s misha/periphery and all that modern metal stuff that intrigued me
Periphery was Probably the only band that make it sound good for the first time in a record. And I’m not a djent guy at all.
 
Despite being a periphery fan when they broke (SSO Chris edition), enjoying the first batch of Sumerian bands and knowing “djent kids love axefx” I completely forget that Misha and crew likely drove some sales as they broke out. And “hometown” heroes Protest The Hero got on board too. They had airplay on TV here in Canada so those following along saw their amp-to-axe transition too.
 
I made the switch to modeling with a Line 6 Vetta. When the original Axe Fx was launched, the positive reviews were enough for me to try it. I was blown away when I received it. I eventually upgraded to the Axe Fx II, and now the III. There’s nothing available today that comes close to Fractal’s products. Amazing tone, excellent customer service, and frequent updates are the reason I will be a customer for life (or at as long as my hands allow me to play).
 
Budda said:
Despite being a periphery fan when they broke (SSO Chris edition), enjoying the first batch of Sumerian bands and knowing “djent kids love axefx” I completely forget that Misha and crew likely drove some sales as they broke out. And “hometown” heroes Protest The Hero got on board too. They had airplay on TV here in Canada so those following along saw their amp-to-axe transition too.
Click to expand...
Protest the Hero is awesome.
 
Budda said:
I completely forget that Misha and crew likely drove some sales as they broke out
Click to expand...
People where always talking about this band in the periphery 2 era around me, the generation after mine . So I end up knowing their songs pretty well, and yeah they have good ones . The tone was good too. For all these djent guys, owning a 2 was « the thing » to have
 
Larry Mitchell was my first introduction to Fractal Audio. I always liked his tone and noticed he was using (at the time) an Axe FX II. Later, I noticed he switched to the III, and I pre-ordered mine. Then, I started noticing all of the players I admire were using the III. Best investment I've ever made.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom